Call us crazy or call us lucky. Either way we decided to sell it all, bought a 5th wheel & hit the road full time with our 3 kiddos & 2 little dogs on 9/17/2016. We'll travel across our country, soaking it all in one mile at a time with some whining along the way I'm sure.

Tuesday, September 20, 2016

Home...I mean Roadschooling

Ahhh homeschooling, what can I say? In my head it's all sunshine & roses, but in reality it's quite stressful for me. It's mainly fear. Afraid I'll mess up. Afraid I won't be up to speed on what they should be doing. Afraid I'll screw them up. I tried the homeschool thing a couple years ago with my oldest when she was in 1st grade & although it started out well, my sweet child decided she didn't want to cooperate. I know what the problem was. I was too busy & preoccupied with other stuff to give it 100% & she got lazy & uninterested. Thankfully she's a smart cookie & the mommy plea of "please just read for 30 minutes every day" was a huge plus because she went into 2nd grade reading on a 4th & 5th grade level. Whew! Thought I totally screwed her up. Of course her math wasn't up to par, but she bounced back & was right where she needed to be by mid year. Going into 3rd grade her reading again was fantastic & her math up to par. Her recent benchmark test scores was a 97% in reading & a 90% in math. I think she's doing just fine. So now that I've dropped everything off my plate with no distractions, except the great outdoors, & we're ready to roll. I will have all kinds of time to homeschool....I mean roadschool. This time I'll have a 9yr old, 5 1/2 yr old & 4 yr old to school as well. Oh boy. Prayers are always welcome & much appreciated :-) I have all their curriculum ready & a schedule as well. I decided to piece it all with some of this & that vs going with one company's curriculum. Honestly it was just too pricey & I know my kids & what will work for them so I wanted to pick & choose. This is what we'll do in case anyone is curious:Math: Math U See (Primer & Gamma). LOVE the use of those little blocks & the videos blew me away! Gonna have hubby watch & learn to because I was impressed.Reading: 30 min of daily reading for the 9 yr old with book reports when she finishes a book & 15 min of reading for the littles along with different reading programs (Hooked on Phonics, Reading Eggs, Reading Bear, Teach Your Monster To Read, etc)Writing: Cursive for the oldest & different daily fun writing ABCs & 123s for the littles (writing in shaving cream, using bingo daubers, paint, watercolors, worksheets, etc)Language Arts: Grammar Ace from Sonlight (uses School House Rock Videos)Science: Magic School Bus videos & Young Scientist Club bundle with 60 different experiments!Geography: As we go we'll learn about the state, capital, state bird, flag, flower, facts, etc (Brain Food Doodle Map)History: Liberty Kids videos with discussionGovernment: Tuttle Twins book with discussionMusic: Learning all the notes (whole, half, quarter, etc), FACE, EGBDF then hopefully as a family we can learn the guitarArt: all the time, we love creativity & will use the great outdoors in our projectsLife Lessons: cooking, budgeting, saving money, giving, etcBible: Daily readings from their children's bible, discussion, memorizing verses

I know it seems like a lot, but we won't be doing all these every day. Each day will be bible readings, life lessons, math, reading, writing & language arts then we'll do science on Monday, History on Tues, etc. I plan on having several breaks so we can walk the dogs & get the wiggles out so they can come back & concentrate better. Studies show that kids who play more & are outdoors often have better concentration on their school work. Total opposite of what public school is like now. I'm nervous, but excited to see how we roll with this. No choice really since it needs to be done & we're committed to full time wandering for a couple years. Let the teaching begin!